From the weekly newsletter Rockstar’s Kindergarten sends to all the parents, “Thank you for replying to our letter about the Parent Volunteer Programme.”
What the freak is this?
Quickly I scan the mail. Yup. Definitely. I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. Was I distracted by a bumblebee? A whole swarm of bumblebees? Were they chewing my arm off?
Ok, Aileen. Don’t panic. Maybe this isn’t your son’s school. Maybe by some strange cosmic event of the mis-typed email sort (ignoring the colossal odds against a typo on an email morphing into a whole other address of a parent at a different school), this isn’t an email from my son’s school. It’s an email from one of the other gadzillion kindergartens in Hong Kong. Yes, that’s it.
Nope. It says so right there. Rockstar’s School.
My fingers tap guiltily. I text 2 other mums, one busily building her own cooking website and another swamped with some glamorous (to me) thing to do with Hong Kong politics that endlessly fascinates me – when I can understand it. I mention this because I appreciate the 2 long, patiently typed out replies I get on a weekend.
Oh. The ESF Parent Volunteer Program. <trying to salvage dignity> But of course. I have a vague recollection of a form among a bunch I was hurriedly filling up – because Rockstar was almost 2 weeks late starting school.
(We were having a First Snow Experience <sheepish>. As someone who went to school late/ travelled late/ was exposed to computers and all manner of general knowledge stuff late, Kings takes Rockstar’s “exposure to new experiences” very seriously.
And they’ll be taking apart old appliances with screwdrivers on Kings’ Gardening Leave. I have to hide all my functioning appliances. Those two and a screwdriver. Deadly. No appliances will be safe.)
The Destroyers Of Working Appliances getting their eggs
So anyway coming back from Melbourne, I filled in a no on that form because I wasn’t sure if I was biting off more than I could chew – this was to help out during the actual school session, not extra events. At extra events, parents handle their own kids. At this one, you’re handling the kids in school.
Handling any other person’s child just scares the total crap out of me. What if their mum doesn’t want me to say this? What if their mum didn’t want them to eat that? What if they tell their mum I fed them sugar? Sold them smokes? Taught them My Humps?
A rumbling fills my ears. Along with the battle cry of 80 pre-schoolers high on the sugar from the Fisherman’s Friend (I don’t Sugar-free because of the Aspartame) they palm out of my Donna Karan Messenger Bag (half-price from Net-a-porter.com).
The pre-schoolers trample me cartoon-style on their way out the exit to a very busy thoroughfare where they flag cabs into Pau Ma Tei and spend the rest of the school day in the arcades. Or at the Jockey Club. Oh hellll. And they would be in school uniform. The resulting scandal could close the school down. After all, last time there was a Dengue false alarm that same road had like, 100 reporters camped out (Seriously. Thank God Rockstar didn’t go to school that day. Apparently it didn’t occur to them how little kids might feel walking thru that furor). MY ROCKSTAR WOULD HAVE NO SCHOOL TO GO TO. How?
Then I forgot about the form. Now they probably have a roster up. And some kind of training schedule.
Ah well. I’ll just volunteer to fill in for any parents who pull out or call in sick.
Wise Man once said, “Better to not say anything and appear stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” Then I think some other guy went and said “And remember to be super-aggressive about all the other things you think you do know about so no one notices this one.” Oh no. What have I done. Now what if all my readers and 2 mums from school think I am an unfit mother.
Ah well, Rockstar already hates if I sound like I’m flaffing about. And he’s only almost 3. It’s just too much work pretending to be a different person to my child. If he catches me at it it’s gonna be that much harder to tell him not to smoke/ get a nose ring/ a tattoo/ date the woman in the circus who used to be a man and funded her operation by allowing herself to be shot out of a cannon.
Every person who was worth their salt, whom I respected at work would just ‘fess up. over stuff like that. Non-biggie. I guess cos it’s more productive? The people who make them biggies are well, the small ones. Small people find small things biggies.
It used to piss the hell out of me when people refused to admit they didn’t know something (can learn what) or would pretend they hadn’t made a simple mistake because God forbid anyone knows they’re human. But well here’s the thing.
If “everything” is “never” your fault, who’s going to believe you when it really isn’t your fault?
PS: And Rockstar, I was kidding about the woman in the circus who used to be a man. You can date her just as long as she’s a nice person who doesn’t ask you to do crap.
